One of my favorite free speech stories concerns a young man who called me back in my ICLU days, to complain that a local fast-food chain wouldn’t hire him because he was tattooed all over. They found it unappetizing, and worried that customers might also. "Don’t I have a First Amendment right to express myself?" he complained. "Sure." I told him…
Continue reading “How Free Speech Works”
E Pluribus Unum
On December 2d, IUPUI hosted the first annual Bulen Symposium. It was a remarkable gathering of nationally recognized scholars, journalists and practitioners of the political arts. The purpose of the day-long conference was to examine the health of America’s two major political parties, but one could be forgiven for wondering…
Continue reading “E Pluribus Unum”
Principled
Most of us profess to admire people of principle, but that admiration is often distressingly abstract. In real life, people who stand on principle are likely to find that they have stepped into the line of everyone?s fire.
Continue reading “Principled”
Rules in Black and White #2
One of the most basic responsibilities of local government is the supervision of traffic. We depend upon municipal officials to engineer our streets and highways, erect and maintain traffic signals, and to promulgate rules that foster safety on the streets…
Continue reading “Rules in Black and White #2”
Morals or Moralism?
A clergyman friend of mine is bemused by America’s fixation with what he calls "genital morality," our seeming incapacity to discuss morals in any but a sexual context, with the result that sexual misconduct ( a la Clinton and Burton) becomes evidence of (drum roll here, please) the Moral Decline of Western Civilization….
Continue reading “Morals or Moralism?”